Catholic church still hasn’t paid up
DEAR EDITOR:
Every time I drive past the St. Ann’s Parish Church in Penticton I feel a wave of disgust.
Prominently displayed out front is an orange sign, “Every child matters.”
In 2005, the Roman Catholic Church agreed to make a lump payment of $29 million in cash, and $25 million of “inkind services” to survivors of the institutions (falsely labelled, “residential schools”) operated by different bodies of the Roman Catholic Church.
Catholic churches across the country also promised to come up with an additional $25 million.
By 2013, the United, Anglican, and Presbyterian churches had more than met their commitments. The Roman Catholic Church had raised less than $4 million toward their goal.
The full initial installment had not yet been paid. Eventually, the federal government took the church to court, and settled for merely $1.2 million more, less than 10 percent of the agreed upon amount.
The Roman Catholic Church have raised nearly $300 million for building projects since 2005. The Government of Canada allowed them to pay less than $7 million of approximately $75 million in commitments to reconciliation. In addition, documents indicate that some funds intended for reconciliation purposes were used to pay lawyer fees and administration fees.
The Roman Catholic Church has withheld institutional records from investigators. The Pope has not offered an apology for the behaviour of the Roman Catholic Church.
He was able to apologize for the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. But, of course, the victims there were white.
The Roman Catholic Church and the Government of Canada have been complicit in continuing the wrongs inflicted on the First Peoples of this land since settlers first arrived. Reconciliation continues to be loudly trumpeted, but quietly buried.
Shame on the Roman Catholic Church, and shame on us for allowing our government to accept this continuation of the injustice.
(Sources: reporting by CBC and the Toronto Globe and Mail.)
Linda Pedy Penticton